Blank Slate

  Blank Slate

  Blank Slate

  Tiffany Snow

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2013 Tiffany Snow

  Originally released as a Kindle Serial, December 2012

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 9781611091793

  ISBN-10: 161109948X

  This book is dedicated to Eleni and the phone call that changed everything.

  Table of Contents

  EPISODE ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  EPISODE TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EPISODE THREE

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  EPISODE FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EPISODE FIVE

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPISODE SIX

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPISODE SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPISODE EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPISODE NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  KINDLE SERIALS

  EPISODE ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  It had begun to snow.

  Special Agent Erik Langston sighed in frustration, his breath fogging up the glass inside the SUV. He hated the cold, and he hated snow, which was why he was particularly irritated that he was stuck in both at the moment. Colorado was a place he might actually enjoy visiting, when the temperature wasn’t hovering about ten degrees above zero.

  It was getting late, the darkness outside the car windows broken only by the amber glow filtering from the windows on the villa nestled in the side of the mountain. The trees surrounding the luxury residence lent to its artistry. Picking up his high-powered binoculars, Erik could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows to the party going on inside. Women dressed in long gowns spun elegantly on the arms of tuxedoed men, their jewels glistening in the light of the chandeliers.

  No doubt just one of those gowns cost three months’ salary, he thought wryly. But he hadn’t picked this profession for the money; he’d chosen it to put bad guys behind bars, and one of those bad guys was inside that villa.

  The cell phone lying on the empty passenger seat began to buzz. Erik picked it up.

  “Langston,” he answered.

  “Still chasing your tail in the middle of nowhere?”

  Erik bit back a sharp retort, the jibe from his colleague and erstwhile partner grating on his nerves more than usual.

  “What do you want, Kaminski?”

  “Just checking up on you. Not everyone chooses to spend New Year’s Eve stalking thieves with a track record of outrunning and outsmarting the FBI.”

  Judging by the slurring of his words and the sounds of revelry in the background, Erik thought it was safe to assume Kaminski was drunk.

  “What I choose to do in my time off is none of your business,” Erik retorted, though the fact that he was bothering to argue with a drunken asshole gave proof to the fact that he’d gone too long without any interaction with another person. Obviously, communing with nature wasn’t his thing.

  “Dude, I’m just saying, you’re obsessed. Lay off the work and get a life. You won’t make an arrest tonight, not alone. And how long has it been since you’ve been laid?”

  “Fuck off.” Erik hung up.

  Before the call he’d been bored and cold. Now he was bored, cold, and pissed off.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t get offers. Women tended to find him attractive, more so once they realized what he did for a living, but Erik chalked that up to too much television. Usually, he gave them a pass. It wasn’t worth the hassle. Invariably he’d get hooked into the scenario of a woman relentlessly calling him, unable to take the hint when he didn’t call them back. Then he’d feel guilty, once or twice allowing himself to be coerced into dinner with sex for dessert, and then he was in even deeper than before.

  No thanks.

  So he worked. And worked. This case in particular had been a thorn in his side for the better part of a year.

  He’d been following the trail a thief who specialized in hacking the computers and bank accounts of some of the wealthiest people in the world. In an usual twist, those same people usually had some sort of link to organized crime. A vigilante masquerading as Robin Hood? Or just a talented thief with a taste for the absurd?

  Erik had been tracking the hacker and their targets for months, always one step behind. Tonight, he’d hoped to turn that around. An anonymous tip had led him to this desolate spot in the Colorado mountains, where he’d been stuck watching the villa for the past two nights; that’s how desperate he was to nail this case.

  Muttering a curse, Erik climbed out of the SUV, pocketing his keys and holstering his gun. The snow crunched underneath his feet as he set off toward the villa. Crashing a New Year’s Eve party wasn’t usually his thing, but damned if he was going to be outsmarted again, and he was tired of waiting.

  A few minutes later, he was knocking on the front door. A butler opened it, and with a flash of his badge and an admonition to alert no one to his presence, he was inside.

  Jeans and a sweater may have passed muster at the office, but were decidedly lowbrow for this party, not that Erik cared. The guests had been dining, drinking, and dancing for hours. No one even gave him a second look.

  She was here. His gut told him so, and he always listened to his gut.

  Snagging an hors d’oeuvre off a passing waitress’s tray, Erik popped it in his mouth, his practiced gaze scanning the crowd.

  Clarissa O’Connell kept moving, though she’d spotted the cop immediately. Damn. How’d he find her?

  It didn’t matter. By the time he realized what was going on, she would be long gone.

  She gave him one more look, since he certainly deserved it. Tall and broad-shouldered, his hair a deep mahogany, he stood out from the crowd, and not just because of his clothing. He carried himself with a confidence bordering on arrogance. In another lifetime, Clarissa might have tried her luck with him. But not tonight.

  Hurrying back to the kitchen, Clarissa discarded the tray of food from which the cop had plucked his morsel. Loitering by the servants’ staircase, she waited, patiently watching for the moment when no one was noticing her. When that time came, she soundlessly climbed the darkened steps to the upper floors, pulling on a pair of latex gloves as she did so.

  If she did this right, she’d finally be free.

  The information she’d been given was accurate, and several minutes later she was standing in front of a computer monitor, waiting for the program she’d uploaded from her flash drive to go to work.

  “Solomon said you’d show up tonight.”

  Clarissa’s hand went for the gun strapped to her thigh.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” cautioned the man now standing directly behind her. He’d blended with the shadows and not made a sound. Now the cold metal of his gun pressed against her bare neck. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Hand it over.”

  Moving slowly and deliberately, Clarissa gave him her gun, turni
ng so she faced him.

  “I see why Solomon chose you,” he said with a snort. “Not exactly a looker. I bet you blend in real well.”

  Clarissa ignored his insult, thinking furiously, her palms damp with sweat. “Solomon told you about me?”

  “Yep. Looks like your boss thinks you’ve outlived your usefulness. I’m here to tie up loose ends.”

  “That’s not what I was promised.”

  “Deals change, sweetheart.”

  Clarissa’s smile was sweet as molasses as her fingers closed over the heavy silver letter opener lying on the desk at her back. “So they do.”

  Quick as a snake, she struck, shoving the arm holding the gun as she buried the letter opener to the hilt in his side.

  He grunted in pain, snarling curses as they struggled. Her knee came up, nailing him in the crotch. The gun dropped to the floor as he dropped to his knees. An elbow to the back of the neck and he was out cold at her feet.

  She retrieved her gun then reached over, typed a few commands into the computer, and waited impatiently for the files to be copied. When it was finished, she snatched the flash drive out of its slot. If Solomon wanted those files, he’d have to pay dearly for them, the lying bastard.

  A few keystrokes later, information began to upload to her remote server, not that anyone would notice if they sat down in front of the computer. The program was both silent and invisible to all but the savviest of technicians, and even then nearly impossible to get rid of unless the drive was wiped clean.

  Clarissa felt the usual thrill of satisfaction from seeing her work in action. Software was easy, logical; the rules it followed never wavered or changed. Unlike people. People lied to you, betrayed you, used you. The only way to stay alive was to never trust anyone, ever. That lesson had saved her life more than once.

  And now it was past time to leave.

  Clarissa hurried to the door, checking to make sure the hallway was clear. A shadow in the corridor made her whisk back inside, out of sight.

  She never heard the gunshot, just a searing pain ripping through her. Reacting automatically, she spun, took quick aim, and pulled the trigger. Her would-be assassin fell back to the floor and didn’t get up again.

  The wound in her side was bleeding. If she hadn’t moved at the last moment, she’d be dead. It wasn’t that bad, though it hurt like hell. The blood mated with the black fabric of her uniform, darkening it, but thankfully not standing out. No one looked, really looked, at the waitstaff. She’d just slip out the back door with no one the wiser.

  Pressing her hand tightly to her side, Clarissa eased into the hallway. The gunshot had gone unnoticed, it seemed, possibly not heard over the revelry of the midnight celebrations below. The New Year had arrived at a very opportune moment.

  At least, it seemed that way until she rounded the corner and ran right into the cop.

  Erik’s hands shot out, grabbing the waitress’s upper arms before she fell backward from their collision. A little thing, her arms seemed fragile enough for him to break with his bare hands. He eased his hold, not wanting to hurt her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer, the surprise on her face somewhat comical. He repeated his question.

  “No hablo Inglés,” the girl stammered, her eyes wide.

  Erik frowned, releasing her. He watched as she hurried down the hall, glancing back at him once before disappearing down a set of stairs. Dismissing her with a shake of his head, he turned back to the empty hallway. He could have sworn he’d heard a gunshot from up here. If he’d been downstairs, he would’ve missed it, with the party in full swing. But he’d been exploring the upper floors when the unmistakable sound had rung out.

  Opening yet another door, Erik saw the faint blue glow of a computer monitor reflecting off the large picture window behind a desk. Casually flipping on the light, he froze when he saw the body on the floor.

  Erik raced forward, crouching to turn the man onto his back. A gun with a silencer attached lay beside the body, the wound in his chest deadly accurate. His eyes stared straight ahead, sightless, while something protruded from his side. Grasping it, Erik pulled out a silver letter opener.

  The waitress. Shit!

  Jumping to his feet, Erik peered out the window to the grounds below. Sure enough, he saw her, hurrying away from the villa toward the bank of cars parked for the guests. Clutching awkwardly at her side, she disappeared among the steel maze.

  Erik ran down the hall, racing down the stairs toward the front door, gun in hand.

  A woman spotted him, saw the gun, and screamed, pointing, “He has a gun!”

  Cries of alarm spread through the guests as Erik pushed his way through them. Dammit! This was taking too long. She was going to be long gone if he had to stop to explain who he was and what was happening.

  The butler who’d let him in earlier now stood uncertainly in front of the doorway, blocking Erik’s path.

  Erik pointed his gun at him as he ran. “Open it!” he ordered.

  The butler blanched, then scurried to do his bidding, flinging open the door just in time for Erik to launch himself through the opening and out into the frigid night.

  Panting for air, Erik skidded to a halt, scanning the cars through the thickening snow falling from the sky.

  There. A sedan was pulling out of the lot on the far side. Erik’s smile was one of satisfaction. That car was a bad choice on a night like tonight in a place like this. He ran to his SUV.

  Clarissa blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. The damn wound in her side hurt more than she’d bargained for, the loss of blood making her slightly dizzy. Damn Solomon and his double-crossing ways! This job should’ve been a piece of cake; had been, until the hired gun had showed up. She’d even slipped past the cop.

  Lights in the rearview mirror caught Clarissa’s eye. Someone was chasing her, and catching up fast. Alarmed, she stepped on the gas, the sedan’s wheels spinning on the fresh snow as it picked up speed.

  Clarissa had memorized the map of roads for the area, though some of them barely deserved the name, being little more than clearings just wide enough for one car to pass through. Forcing herself to concentrate, she put both hands on the frigid wheel, hoping the uniform she wore was tight enough to keep the bleeding down. Consulting her memory, she suddenly stepped hard on the brakes, spun the wheel, and hit the gas again. The car fishtailed at the abrupt turn before the wheels found purchase and she shot down the road.

  Snow lay on the evergreens overhead, their laden branches hanging low and brushing the car as she flew past. The snowfall was heavy, the flakes coming down thick and fast. Glancing in her mirror, Clarissa saw the lights still behind her, the pursuer taking the sudden turn in stride and eating up the ground between them.

  Clarissa cursed her decision to take the sedan rather than searching the lot for a more appropriate vehicle. At the time, expediency had seemed to be the wisest course, but she hadn’t known she’d have someone chasing her. Someone who appeared quite relentless.

  Consulting the map in her head yet again, Clarissa wavered in indecision. She thought she could make the turn ahead, but that road was filled with dangerous switchbacks. One more glance in the mirror and her lips thinned into a tight line. There really wasn’t a choice, not if she wanted to lose the guy behind her.

  A brief thought flashed through her mind — she hoped it wasn’t the cop. He was doing his job and didn’t deserve to be killed for it. She just really didn’t have time to be arrested, even by a cop as mouth-wateringly gorgeous as that one.

  Sending up a quick prayer to anyone who might be listening, Clarissa took a deep breath, then slammed on the brakes, spinning the wheel as fast as she dared before stomping on the gas again. The sudden, sharp movement caused a flash of pain in her side, but she gritted her teeth, tightly gripped the wheel, and ignored it.

  The car fishtailed again, the wheels spinning, and the back of the sedan slammed into a tree. Clarissa jerked in her sea
t at the impact but didn’t let up on the gas. Bouncing off the tree, the wheels caught and she was racing down the road. She let out the breath she’d been holding. That had been close.

  Watching in the mirror, she saw the SUV skid and slow, then back up to make the turn.

  Clarissa cursed under her breath, jerking her attention back to the road. It was rougher, the beams from the headlights dancing crazily as the car bounced and dipped over the uneven patches.

  A sharp curve loomed ahead, and Clarissa’s hands tightened until her knuckles were white. Fear lapped at her, but she fought it. There wasn’t any time to be scared.

  Bracing herself, she slowed the car. The empty space beyond the bend in the road made her blood turn to ice. If she didn’t make it, it was a long way down. She turned the wheel.

  The car slid past the edge of the road, and Clarissa choked back a cry. But luck or an angel was with her because just when she felt sure her next breath would be her last, the car shot forward again.

  Her heart pounded in her chest, while her palms were damp and slick on the steering wheel. Watching in the mirror, Clarissa held her breath while the SUV easily made the turn.

  Damn! How was she going to lose him?

  Looking back at the road, Clarissa screamed, instinctively jerking the wheel and slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting the deer standing directly in her path.

  The car swerved with a sickening lurch, spinning 180 degrees before sliding off the road and down a steep embankment. Slamming into trees, it broke branches before flipping once end over end.

  Clarissa’s heart was in her throat, the world upside down and righting itself around her. The sound of wrenching metal was loud in her ears as she was flung against the steering wheel, her head slamming against something so hard the pain caused instant nausea.